NextEra Energy Resources announces plan for construction

Wednesday

After almost a year of research and discussions, NextEra Energy Resources has announced plans to begin construction on a wind farm in northeast Hockley County, just outside of Lubbock County.

Construction on the project is set to begin in the spring, with the hopes of having the turbines up and running by the beginning of 2016. The plan is set to have 47 wind turbines on the site.

The name of the farm will be Red Raider Wind.

Noah Hyte, project manager and developer for NextEra Energy Resources, said the project should have a good impact on the two counties.

"To us," Hyte said, "it could be a great success story for the two counties and the overall region. It's a capital investment of well over $100 million, and in terms of direct local impact, we're talking about creating a lot of jobs."

Apart from five or six specialists, he said the construction phase should create more than 100 seasonal full-time jobs, some of them as a result of the material that has been given priority to come out of this area.

The project was approved during a special meeting with the Hockley County Commissioners' Court earlier this week, where the court agreed to a payment in lieu of a tax abatement for $1,500 per installed megawatt per year during the first 10 years to Hockley County.

The project is estimated to be at 80 megawatts.

Unlike most of the turbines in the state, whose power is managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the turbines at Red Raider Wind will likely be connected with Southwest Power Pool, Hyte said. SPP provides services in nine states, so the power has the potential to be bought in states like New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Arkansas.

It'll be sold wholesale to various utilities, municipalities and power cooperatives.

When asked about the land use, representatives at NextEra said they have seen strong support.

"Overall, we think there's strong support in the community both from landowners and from the municipalities themselves," Hyte said. "Quite a few have formally expressed support and we're continuing to engage in dialogue with the counties and the various municipalities involved."

NextEra officials estimated they'll be paying landowners well over $25 million during the course of the first 30 years of the project, and the company is going to be a taxpayer of more than $30 million for property taxes in the first 30 years as well.

Anthony Patterson, director in business development at NextEra, said wind is more compatible for landowners than other forms of energy.

"You can still ranch, you can still farm and you can still do whatever it was you were doing before the wind farm, after it's built," Patterson said.

Hyte went further to say wind has the potential to be a more compatible source of energy in this area due to the amount of water it takes.

On a megawatt-per-hour basis, he said a typical gas plant can use hundreds or thousands of gallons of water, where as the only water a wind turbine will require is what it takes to mix the concrete.

"Wind power compared to fossil fuel uses tremendously less water," he said, "which I know is extremely sensitive in your area."

Andrew Swift, associate director at the National Wind Institute and a professor at Texas Tech, said the wind farm will be beneficial for his students, who will have access to some of the data from the turbines, which is hard to get.

"It'll be great for our student program out at the National Institute for Renewable Energy," he said.

Swift went on to say renewable energy is continuing to grow worldwide, with wind being the leading source.

He credited the Texas Legislature for being proactive in installing transmission lines.

Steve Stengel, director of communications at NextEra Energy Resources, said the company is a big player in the Texas energy market, with about $7 billion invested in energy infrastructure throughout the state.

It is the largest wind company in North America in terms of installed megawatts.

Depending on the market, Stengel said Red Raider Wind has the potential to expand after a few years of service.

matt.dotray@lubbockonline.com

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